johnny cash rip
Tim Herrick
of this window.
Cash Legacy Extends Beyond Country Music
By JIM PATTERSON
.c The Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Stalked by his own mortality, long past his show
business prime, Johnny Cash spent the last years of his life hard at work.
The reward was four exceptional albums and dozens of unreleased recordings
produced with rock-rap impresario Rick Rubin. Though rarely heard on the radio,
the songs marked Cash as a rare artist whose last work ranks with his greatest.
``The last 10 years with American (Recordings) have been the glory days for
me,'' Cash said in a September 2002 interview with The Associated Press.
``They're equal to the Sun (Records) days, to me.''
Cash, 71, died early Friday of complications from diabetes. His death came
four months after that of his wife, June Carter Cash. The couple appeared
together in an arresting video for ``Hurt,'' which paired images from the peak of
their popularity with the crumbling, closed House of Cash Museum and the two
frail stars inside their Tennessee home.
``The body of work that he produced, from 'I Walk the Line' to 'Hurt,' it
will stand forever as the work of a great American artist,'' said
singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell, the ex-husband of Cash's daughter Rosanne Cash.
Cash even managed to transform his own physical deterioration into art. He
saw the Trent Reznor-penned ``Hurt'' as the ultimate song and video about the
price of drug addiction, which he struggled with for much of his life.
Cash began his career as a protege of Sam Phillips, the Memphis producer who
also discovered Elvis Presley.
Even then, Cash stood apart.
While Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis were making boisterous, joyful records
about love and sex, Cash sang in ``Folsom Prison Blues'' about a man sitting in
prison because he ``shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.''
Even his love songs could be dark and unsettled: The narrator in ``I Walk the
Line'' sings of his devotion to his lover as if he might fall off a tightrope
at any moment. Falling in love was akin to falling into a ``Ring of Fire.''
``I always kind of knew exactly where I fit in, in this music business,''
Cash said. ``I never felt any competition from anybody else. I always did my
thing ... the way I felt it, the way I saw it, the way it feels right to me.''
After moving from Sun to Columbia Records in 1958, Cash was marketed as a
mainstream country act. He responded with singles about prisoners (``I've Got
Stripes''), hard country life (``Five Feet High and Rising'') and brooding songs
about love and love lost (``Guess Things Happen that Way'').
He recorded a series of concept albums in the 1960s calling attention to the
problems of American Indians (``Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American
Indian'') and other social problems. Two classic live albums were recorded in prisons:
``At San Quentin'' and ``At Folsom Prison.''
He was among the first to champion songwriters Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan
and Joni Mitchell. All appeared on the network television show he hosted from
1969-71 that got him the highest profile of his career.
The television visibility helped Cash promote singles like his take on
Kristofferson's gritty ``Sunday Morning Coming Down,'' Shel Silverstein's comic ``A
Boy Named Sue'' and Cash's personal statement about social injustice, ``Man in
Black.''
Although he spent the bulk of his career identified as a country music
artist, that was too narrow for Cash, who could sing rock 'n' roll on par with
Elvis, folk with Dylan, and later take on songs by Nick Cave and Reznor.
``It was said of jazz great Duke Ellington that his music was 'beyond
category,''' said Charles Wolfe, music historian and author at Middle Tennessee State
University. ``The same could be said of Johnny Cash - he too was beyond
category. His music was simply a genre unto itself, Johnny Cash music.''
Cash's career went into commercial decline in the mid-1970s. In 1974,
Columbia executives talked him into adding his vocals to songs chosen by producers.
He called the resulting album, ``John R. Cash,'' the ``low point of my
recording career.''
``That was the ultimate insult,'' he said.
A move from Columbia to Mercury Records failed to re-ignite his record sales.
But in 1994, his collaboration with Rubin, ``American Recordings,'' found
Cash sounding more comfortable than he had in years with Rubin's stark production
and wide array of song choices.
On the Rubin-produced albums, Cash sang everything from ``Danny Boy'' to
``Rusty Cage'' by Soundgarden. He got inside the head of a man being executed in
Cave's ``Mercy Seat'' and put new depth into old hits like ``Give My Love to
Rose.''
Cash retired from performing in the 1990s because of a nervous system
condition brought on by diabetes. In recent years, he had several bouts with
pneumonia that nearly killed him.
But he pressed on with recording, even after the death of his wife. He
reportedly had more than 30 unreleased songs finished before his death, including a
duet with the late Clash singer, Joe Strummer.
``My vocation is fun,'' he said. ``I don't know any time that I don't feel
like working on a record.''
Tim Herrick
body of work influenced a range of artists from Justin Timberlake and Pharrell
Williams to Metallica and the White Stripes.
"I am deeply saddened by the passing of Johnny Cash," said Justin Timberlake
through his publicist. Timberlake praised the outlaw country singer/songwriter
at the MTV Video Music Awards when he said his Moonman for Best Male Video
should have gone to Johnny Cash, whose "Hurt" clip garnered six nominations and
one win.
"Given the depth and breadth of influence and status, it's obvious that words
can't even begin to describe the significance of his passing," Moby wrote on
his Web site. "Suffice it to say that few people have been as powerful and
influential as Johnny Cash, and the world is a much poorer place for his absence."
Cash died Friday morning of respiratory failure (see "Johnny Cash Dead At
71").
Moby closed his brief eulogy with a consoling thought: "At least he and June
can be together again." Johnny's wife June Carter Cash died in May (see
"Country Star June Carter Cash, Wife of Johnny Cash, Dies At 73").
"I feel music has lost one of its great heroes and the country has lost one
of its most authentic voices," Sheryl Crow mourned in a statement. "I will miss
knowing he is continuing to express what everyone feels through his music but
I will mostly miss the man."
Artists whose careers span decades are equally indebted to the Man in Black.
"His influence spread over many generations of different people," said the
Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger in a statement. "I loved him as a singer and writer."
"I am saddened and very sorry for all Johnny's family," said Elvis Costello.
"He was a great, great man."
From those who knew him personally, the importance of his work was matched
only by the goodness in his heart.
"He showed me his house, his ranch, his zoo (seriously, he had a zoo in
Nashville), his faith, his musicianship," said U2's Bono on the band's Web site.
"He was more than wise. In a garden full of weeds — the oak tree."
"Not only has the world lost a legend, but we in country music have lost one
of our family," Country Music Hall of Famer Loretta Lynn said in a statement.
"I know both Johnny and June will always be looking down and watching over us
all. The stars in heaven are just a little bit brighter."
"I'm just shocked and saddened and still finding myself stunned by the news
of his passing," read country singer Dwight Yoakam's statement, "but am
eternally grateful for ever having had the opportunity to know him and to share a
friendship with him. I will be forever honored that John allowed me the privilege
of his company."
"I lost one of my best friends," said country singer Marty Stuart, who played
guitar in Cash's band from 1980-85. "It leaves a dark void in my life that is
blacker than any coat he ever wore. He is irreplaceable."
Cash garnered acclaim most recently from a new generation of music fans
thanks to his cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," which appears on his latest album,
American IV: The Man Comes Around.
"To hear that Johnny was interested in doing my song was a defining moment in
my life's work," said NIN's Trent Reznor. "To hear the result really reminded
me how beautiful, touching and powerful music can be. The world has truly
lost one of the greats. My heart goes out to his family and friends."
The Nine Inch Nails Web site, www.nin.com, was all black on Friday in tribute.
"Hurt" was the latest cover converted into a hit in the American series. With
producer Rick Rubin at the helm, the Man in Black basked in a new wave of
cool when American Recordings, the first LP in the series, dropped in 1994.
"He's an outsider, never been part of a trend," said Rubin, who also noted
that he wasn't a country fan but a Johnny Cash fan. "A rock star is a musical
outlaw and that's Johnny."
Audioslave's Chris Cornell agreed with Reznor that being covered by Cash is a
great compliment. "Rusty Cage," by his former band Soundgarden, was remade
for Cash's 1996 album, Unchained.
"The highlight of my musical career," Cornell called it. "When [Johnny] sings
a song, you listen to what he has to say. And he draws from his own
experience to make that song believable and get people to understand it."
To learn more about the infamous Man in Black, check out Kurt Loder's "Johnny
Cash: Original Gangsta."
—Joe D'Angelo, with additional reporting by Ryan Downey
Tim Herrick
By JOHN GEROME
.c The Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Johnny Cash's rugged voice championed the downtrodden
and reached across generations. His legacy will survive as long as there's
music, says his friend and fellow country music singer Glen Campbell.
``I don't see any stars on the horizon that are like Johnny Cash,'' Campbell
said. ``He was so unique. I miss him.''
Cash, ``The Man in Black,'' died Friday from diabetes that resulted in
respiratory failure.
In his songs, Cash crafted a persona as a dignified, resilient voice for the
common man - but there was always a dark edge.
One of the most haunting couplets in popular music comes from ``Folsom Prison
Blues,'' which went to No. 4 on the country charts in 1956: ``I shot a man in
Reno, just to watch him die.''
Forty-seven years later, Cash's arresting video for ``Hurt'' was nominated
for six MTV Video Music Awards, winning one.
``He is the patron saint of every kid with a guitar,'' said singer-songwriter
Tom Waits. ``Songwriters learn how to write songs from listening to each
other. He's like a wise old tree full of songs. I spent many days under his
branches.''
His deeply lined face fit well with his voice, which was limited in range but
used to great effect to sing about prisoners, heartaches and tales of
everyday life.
As news of his death spread, musicians praised Cash for his independent,
rebellious streak that made him a powerful influence in country, rock, folk and
gospel music.
``When I went to Nashville 40 years ago to record my first country song
Johnny was a welcoming figure and became a lifelong friend,'' Ray Charles said.
``He made a giant contribution to music, not just country style.''
Cash had been released from the hospital Tuesday after a two-week stay for
treatment of an unspecified stomach ailment. The illness caused him to miss last
month's MTV awards, where his ``Hurt'' - a cover of Trent Reznor's song with
Nine Inch Nails - won for cinematography.
``To hear that Johnny was interested in doing my song was a defining moment
in my life's work,'' Reznor said. ``To hear the result really reminded me how
beautiful, touching and powerful music can be.''
Cash had battled a disease of the nervous system, autonomic neuropathy, and
pneumonia in recent years. His second wife, singer June Carter Cash, who
co-wrote Cash's hit ``Ring of Fire,'' died in May.
``Not only has the world lost a legend, but we in country music have lost one
of our family,'' said Loretta Lynn. ``I know both Johnny and June will always
be looking down and watching over us all. The stars in heaven are just a
little brighter.''
Cash wrote much of his own material and was among the first to record the
songs of Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson.
``One Piece at a Time'' was about an assembly line worker who built a car out
of parts stolen from his factory. ``A Boy Named Sue,'' a Shel Silverstein
song he took to No. 1 in 1969, was a comical story of a father who gives his son
a girl's name to make him tough.
Kristofferson, who wrote Cash's 1970 hit ``Sunday Morning Coming Down,''
called the singer a ``true American hero.''
``He was always larger than life for me, and I've known him for over 30
years,'' Kristofferson said.
Cash said in his self-titled 1997 autobiography that he tried to speak for
``voices that were ignored or even suppressed in the entertainment media, not to
mention the political and educational establishments.''
Each new generation found something of value in Cash's records, many of which
used his trademark rockabilly rhythm.
``His impact on country music and all music is up there in a very rarified
atmosphere,'' said Kyle Young, director of the Country Music Hall of Fame and
Museum. ``He was so accessible and his voice was so instantly recognizable. And
he used really simple arrangements. When you listened to him you almost
thought you could go out and make music yourself.''
Cash was a peer of Elvis Presley when he began recording in Memphis in the
1950s, and he scored hits like ``Cry! Cry! Cry!'' during that era. He had a
longtime friendship and recorded with Dylan, who has cited Cash as a major
influence.
``His early records were more rockabilly than country. He's widely considered
a pioneer of the rockabilly sound and early rock 'n' roll,'' said Jim Henke,
chief curator at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
Cash, who won 11 Grammy Awards, was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame
in 1980 and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.
June Carter Cash, who partnered with him in hits such as ``Jackson,'' and
daughter Rosanne Cash also were successful singers.
``His light bulbs were bright, you know? He united the downtrodden working
man with the royalty of Europe. He could span all of what humanity is,'' said
singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell, who was once married to Roseanne Cash.
The late 1960s and '70s were Cash's peak commercial years, and he was host of
his own ABC variety show from 1969-71.
In the 1990s, Cash found a new artistic life recording with rock-rap producer
Rick Rubin on the label American Recordings. He was back on the charts in
2002 with the album ``American IV: The Man Comes Around.''
In his 1971 hit ``Man in Black,'' Cash said his black clothing symbolized the
world's downtrodden people.
``Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkle clothes and cowboy
boots,'' he said in 1986. ``I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if
I could get by with it. I did and I've worn black clothes ever since.''
Tim Herrick
Music legend was voice of downtrodden
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By Glenn Gamboa
Staff Writer
September 13, 2003
Johnny Cash, "The Man in Black," was an American original. The Original Rock
and Roll Rebel. The Original Country Hero. The Original Anti-Star. And, as MTV
dubbed him a couple weeks ago, The Original Gangsta.
He was a deeply religious man who challenged authority at every turn. He was
one of music's most influential legends, the patriarch of country's first
family, while remaining a champion of the downtrodden. He was a staunch defender
of American ideals and a fierce critic of the country when it failed to live up
to them.
Cash died from respiratory failure due to complications with diabetes at 3
a.m. Friday at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Tenn., according to his manager
Lou Robin. He was 71. Funeral plans have not been announced.
Last month, friends said Cash had grown stronger since the death of his wife,
June Carter Cash, in May, using the loss as a reason to focus on his health.
However, Cash was hospitalized on Aug. 27 for a stomach ailment. Though he was
released from the hospital on Wednesday, by late Thursday night, he returned.
"The citizens of the world have lost one of their most enduring guiding
lights," said singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell, Cash's son-in-law for 12 years
through his marriage to Cash's daughter Rosanne Cash. "As a musical hero to
millions, a trailblazing artist, humanitarian, spiritual leader, social commentator
and most importantly, patriarch to one of the most varied and colorful
extended families imaginable, Johnny Cash will, like Will Rogers, stand forever as a
symbol of intelligence, creativity, compassion and common sense. I'm thinking
Mount Rushmore."
Even President George W. Bush noted Cash's passing, saying, "Johnny Cash was
a music legend and American icon whose career spanned decades and genres. His
resonant voice and human compassion reached the hearts and souls of
generations, and he will be missed. Laura joins me in sending our thoughts and prayers
to his family."
Cash's music was a groundbreaking mix of styles -- a stirring combination of
country, folk and rock and roll that paved the way for three generations of
stars from Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson to Tom Petty -- seen in his
string of hits from "I Walk the Line," "Ring of Fire" and "A Boy Named Sue." He
won 11 Grammys, including one this year for best male country vocal performance
for "Give My Love to Rose" from his latest CD, "American IV: The Man Comes
Around." He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980 and inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.
Beyond the music, though, it was Cash's lyrics and his themes, as well as his
overall rebellious attitude, that won him countless admirers, from U2 to Rage
Against the Machine to Justin Timberlake, who dedicated his recent MTV Video
Music Award for best male video to Cash, who was a fellow nominee. Cash ended
up winning his first Video Music Award this year when his "Hurt" video won for
best cinematography.
"He has a soul as big as a continent, full of righteous anger mixed with
human compassion -- a true individual in a land founded on individuality," wrote
U2's guitarist The Edge in one of many appreciations collected for Cash's "The
Essential Johnny Cash" compilation, released last year. "There will never be
another like him, and he could have come from nowhere else. When he came
through the studio door for the first time, it was like Moses himself had arrived.
He is a character of truly biblical proportions, with a voice all wailing
freight trains and thundering prairies, like the landscape of his beloved America.
Before I got to see it with my own eyes, I had a picture of it through Johnny
Cash's singing."
John R. Cash was born Feb. 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Ark., one of seven
children. After working as a custodian, he enlisted in the Air Force, learning the
guitar when he was stationed in Germany. He started his career in 1955,
alongside Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis at Sun Studios, leaning more
toward country than his rockabilly counterparts in songs like "Folsom Prison
Blues," which included his famous line, "I shot a man in Reno/ just to watch
him die."
After his quick stardom, Cash's career had its share of ups and downs. He
hosted his own TV variety show. He had dozens of hits. He also had been arrested
in 1965, for attempted drug smuggling when he tried to hide 1,000 pills in his
guitar case as he crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, and he faced scandal the
same year for busting out 60 footlights at the Grand Ole Opry, getting him
banned from the hallowed hall. Cash was in the middle of yet another resurgence
this year, thanks, in part, to the influence he had with stars like Fiona Apple,
Nick Cave and Don Henley, who all performed on his latest album. However, it
was Cash's version of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," and the stunning video that
accompanied it, that introduced him to a whole new audience.
"He reads it as an anti-drug song and he takes it in and really feels it,"
said producer and American Recordings chief Rick Rubin, who brought "Hurt" to
Cash's attention as part of the preparation for the "American IV: The Man Comes
Around" album. "He feels the words were written from the perspective of having
given life to drugs with regret and what the result was."
It was a theme that was close to Cash's heart. He has made no secret of his
past drug addictions and how he overdosed and nearly died from a mixture of
amphetamines and barbiturates on a cave exploration trip with Hank Williams Jr.
in October 1967. "As we drove back toward Nashville, I told my mother that God
had saved me from killing myself," Cash wrote in his autobiography "Cash." "I
told her I was ready to commit myself to Him and do whatever it took to get
off drugs. I wasn't lying."
Soon after that near-fatal day, he married June Carter, a fellow
singer-songwriter who helped him beat his addictions and stood by his side for the next 35
years, until she died in May. Their marriage, which united Cash's children
Kathleen, Cindy, Tara and Rosanne from his first marriage to Vivian Liberto,
Carter's daughter Carlene, and their son John Carter Cash, led Cash to write more
about love and God to balance out his already-established themes about
rebelliousness and fighting for what is right. In 2000, Cash released a box set
"Love God Murder," which chronicled songs from his three major themes.
Death also became one of Cash's themes, after near-death experiences
associated with drugs and his ongoing battle against the nervous-system disease
autonomic neuropathy, which also led to associated diseases like diabetes and
asthma. The death of June Carter Cash took a heavy toll on him.
However, Rubin said it had made Cash more determined to finish a new album of
material, which was supposed to begin recording this month, and to see the
release of a new box set of tracks recorded during sessions from his four
"American" CDs, set for release late this fall.
Cash has long thought about his death and prepared for the afterlife, though.
When Barbara Walters asked him whether he believed in heaven in a 1983
interview, he said, "I'm going to heaven. I've spent my time in hell."
Tim Herrick
By Steve Morse, Globe Staff, 9/13/2003
Johnny Cash, a country music legend and a founder of rock 'n' roll with Elvis
Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, died yesterday of complications from diabetes.
He was 71.
Known worldwide as the "Man in Black" because of his favored stage attire,
Mr. Cash was a towering presence in the music industry for almost 60 years, even
recently becoming an icon to the MTV generation. He performed for five
presidents and was awarded the National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities
Medal by President George W. Bush.
The baritone-voiced Mr. Cash earned a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in
1999. He has been inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame.
"It would be incomprehensible to imagine what country music would have been
like without Johnny Cash," said Ed Benson, executive director of the Country
Music Association.
Mr. Cash won 11 Grammy awards, including one this year for best male country
performance. He recorded 1,500 songs that can be found on about 500 albums,
according to his website.
He was idolized by country acts from Merle Haggard to Emmylou Harris and Alan
Jackson and by rockers from Bruce Springsteen to Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow,
Social Distortion, and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.
"He defined the poet-outlaw," Crow said. "He gave voice to the hard-working,
hard-living man. I look upon him as a man who struggled and found redemption
and continued to tell his stories."
It was Mr. Cash's versatility that may be his greatest legacy. Indeed, when
he toured regularly and often played Boston's Symphony Hall, his show included
old and new country ballads, some '50s rockabilly from his seminal days with
Sun Records, gospel songs, patriotic hymns, gunfighter laments, Appalachian
mountain singalongs, banjo knee-slappers, and country duets.
"Johnny Cash is everything," fellow Rock Hall of Famer Little Richard once
said. "He's rock `n' roll, and he's country. He's rhythm 'n' blues. And he's
gospel. He's in all of it, and he's good in all of it."
In concert, Mr. Cash would rock hard on "Folsom Prison Blues" -- he was known
for prison songs, though he never served any time there, unlike, say, Merle
Haggard. He would play harmonica to the hoedown "Orange Blossom Special,"
perform a duet with wife June Carter Cash, and then tease the crowd with
vaudevillian flair on "A Boy Named Sue."
He would add his political support for underdogs by often performing "The
Ballad of Ira Hayes," about a Native American who helped hoist the flag at Iwo
Jima in World War II, but came home to an indifferent society that, he said,
caused him to become an alcoholic.
Mr. Cash's highest-charting pop single was "A Boy Named Sue," which reached
number two in 1969. He also enjoyed top-40 success with "I Walk the Line"
(1956), "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" (1958), "Big River" (1958), "Don't Take Your
Guns to Town" (1959), "Ring of Fire" (1963), and numerous others, including a
cover of "If I Were a Carpenter" (1970) and his last pop hit, "One Piece at the
Time" (1976).
This past year, Mr. Cash stunned observers by reaching the youth market
through modern-rock airplay of his emotive cover of "Hurt" by the Nine Inch Nails.
It not only demonstrated musical open-mindedness, but its video earned seven
nominations at the MTV Video Music Awards on Aug. 28 (it won one for best
cinematography). Mr. Cash was invited to the ceremonies in New York, but was
hospitalized that day.
"We're in mourning," Rick Krim, executive vice president of sister station
VH1, said yesterday. "I think his video was the most emotionally powerful video
I have ever seen. It was like a living effigy. There was a lot of historical
footage, and then there he was, sitting around a table looking sickly. But it
was mesmerizing."
Mr. Cash's resurgence in the industry began in 1994, when he won a Grammy in
the folk category for his CD, "Cash: American Recordings." And it was
solidified in 1998, when he won another Grammy for "Unchained," this time for best
country album.
Mr. Cash was also the head of a musical dynasty that included daughters
Rosanne, a country hitmaker in her own right, and Carlene, a country-rocker who
married rock singer Nick Lowe. Rosanne's former husband, Rodney Crowell, is an
influential country performer and songwriter.
"I am deeply saddened by the loss of my children's grandfather and my dear
friend," Crowell said in a statement yesterday, adding that Mr. Cash was
"patriarch to one of the most varied and colorful extended families imaginable."
The son of Southern Baptist sharecroppers, John R. Cash was born Feb. 26,
1932, in Kingsland, Ark., "in a little house surrounded by pine trees, surrounded
by cotton fields," he wrote in liner notes for a tribute CD called "Kindred
Spirits."
"I lived in Northeast Arkansas in the black Delta land along the Mississippi
county line."
Cash never learned to read music. He started singing at age 4, when he
accompanied his mother in the house. At age 12, he got his first guitar, and in high
school he performed on radio station KLCN in Blytheville, Ark. He moved to
Detroit in his late teens before joining the Air Force as a radio operator in
Germany.
Mr. Cash then moved to Memphis and worked as an appliance salesman. He went
to a radio announcers' school before recording for Sam Phillips's Sun label in
1955. He fronted a trio with the guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall
Grant, and their first Sun hits were "Cry, Cry, Cry," "Folsom Prison Blues,"
and "I Walk the Line."
Mr. Cash soon began a 30-year association with Columbia Records. His 1968
live recording, "At Folsom Prison," became his first million-selling album. A
year later he became the first country artist to sell out Madison Square Garden.
Mr. Cash also demonstrated his open-mindedness by singing a duet with Bob
Dylan ("Girl of the North Country") and writing liner notes for Dylan's crossover
country-pop album, "Nashville Skyline."
And in 1969, Mr. Cash was enlisted by ABC-TV to host "The Johnny Cash Show,"
which had a popular two-year run and featured such guests as Stevie Wonder,
James Taylor, and Dylan, who was the first musical guest.
At a televised tribute to Mr. Cash four years ago in New York, Dylan said, "I
want to thank you for standing up for me way back when."
A frequent champion of young songwriters, Mr. Cash -- in addition to writing
more than 400 of his own songs -- recorded material by Springsteen, Tom Waits,
Leonard Cohen, Depeche Mode, and Nine Inch Nails. His albums in the past
decade, with producer Rick Rubin, have helped him cross over to MTV-bred
listeners, who got a dose of the Cash mystique in 1994 on "Delia's Gone," a dark murder
ballad that became an MTV video hit starring model Kate Moss.
Mr. Cash's baritone, unmistakably chiseled and twang-filled, could wrap
itself around just about anything. Mr. Cash even showed up to sing on U2's
"Zooropa" album in 1993. U2's Bono noted that he had "the most male voice in
Christendom. Every man knows he is a sissy compared to Johnny Cash."
After struggling with amphetamines and barbituates in the mid-'60s, when he
spent a year and a half of famously debauched living with fellow maverick
Waylon Jennings, Mr. Cash converted to fundamentalist Christianity in the late '60s
and turned his life around.
He credited second wife June Carter with the change in lifestyle, but he
never became moralistic or preachy about it. Mrs. Cash died last May 15 of heart
failure.
Mr. Cash stayed loyal to outlaw country friends such as Jennings, Willie
Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. Together they toured as the Highwaymen and played
the Worcester Centrum in 1990 before nearly 11,000 fans. Among his last local
appearances were Avalon in 1996 and Harborlights Pavilion in 1997. As a
songwriter, Mr. Cash was a bridge between country's traditional roots and the
radicalizing dawn of rock 'n' roll. He grew up listening to Jimmie Rodgers and the
Carter Family. His songwriting also displayed a remarkable range, from the
bluntness of "Folsom Prison Blues" to the ultrasensitive numbers "I Still Miss
Someone" (with the verse, "I never got over those blues eyes/ I see them
everywhere") and "Give My Love to Rose," about meeting a dying ex-con who is trying to
get a final message to his wife and son.
Springsteen sang the song at the New York tribute to Mr. Cash four years ago,
and it also appears on the "Kindred Spirits" CD.
In recent years, Mr. Cash was mistakenly diagnosed with Shy-Drager Syndrome,
a rare form of Parkinson's, when in fact it was autonomic neuropathy, the
Associated Press said. But when he went on "Larry King Live" last December, Mr.
Cash expressed no bitterness.
"Why should I be bitter? I'm thrilled to death with life," said Mr. Cash, who
went on to describe "a golden platter of life laid out there for me. It's
been beautiful."
Mr. Cash leaves four daughters from his first marriage, Rosanne, Kathy,
Cindy, and Tara. He also leaves a son, John Carter, from his second marriage and
two stepdaughters, Carlene and Rosie, in addition to 12 grandchildren.
Tim Herrick
1932 - 2003
Voice of the common man
Country music's 'Man in Black' sold 50 million albums
James Sullivan, Chronicle Pop Culture Critic Saturday, September 13, 2003
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Johnny Cash, a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame and one of the truly magnificent American voices of any
era, died early Friday morning in a Nashville hospital. He was 71.
Cash, known to a worldwide audience as "The Man in Black," died of
complications from diabetes that resulted in respiratory failure, his manager, Lou
Robin, said in a statement issued by Baptist Hospital in Nashville. Cash died at
the hospital at 2 a.m. CDT. Cash had been released from the hospital Tuesday
after a two-week stay for treatment of an unspecified stomach ailment. The
illness caused him to miss last month's MTV awards, where his "Hurt" -- a cover of
the Nine Inch Nails song -- won for cinematography. He had battled a disease of
the nervous system, autonomic neuropathy, and pneumonia in recent years.
Cash was a towering figure in popular music, a man whose own internal
struggles -- with substance abuse, his spirituality, politics and social justice --
lent an inimitably deep, rich, dignified voice to the common man. He had
periods of tremendous commercial success, selling well over 50 million albums in his
lifetime, yet he was known for relentlessly pursuing his muse, often at the
expense of a wider audience. His best-known songs include "I Walk the Line,"
"Folsom Prison Blues," "I Still Miss Someone," "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," "A Boy
Named Sue" and "Ring of Fire." (The latter was co-written by Merle Kilgore
and June Carter Cash, whom Cash would marry in 1968.)
Cash received many of the entertainment industry's most prestigious awards,
including a Living Legend medal from the Library of Congress, a Living Legend
Grammy and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He was elected to the Country
Music Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, joining
Elvis Presley as the only two singers to be immortalized in both institutions.
As one of the great ambassadors for country music, Cash represented a
throwback kind of Americanism that was both rugged individualist and devoted
humanitarian. His three prison concerts in the 1960s were legendary. From the late
1960s well into the 1980s, he was a regular fixture on network television,
hosting his own prime-time variety program, "The Johnny Cash Show"
(1969-'71),
and a long-term annual CBS Christmas special. He made appearances on a broad
range of programs, from "Little House on the Prairie" and "The Muppet Show" to
"Saturday Night Live."
He was a simple man of contradictory impulses, and he made a lifelong habit
of telling the truth as he saw it, consequences be damned. "He believes what he
says," his daughter Rosanne once said, "but that don't make him a saint."
Above all, Cash stood as a man of conviction. "I have no regrets," he wrote
in a postscript to his second autobiography. "I carry no guilt, and I bear no
ill-will toward anybody."
J.R. Cash was born Feb. 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Ark., the fourth of seven
children of Ray and Carrie (Rivers) Cash. The middle initial, Cash would explain
throughout his life, "didn't stand for anything."
The family moved to Dyess, Ark., about 30 miles northwest of Memphis, when
Johnny was 3. "When we finally got to Dyess," the singer wrote in "Cash: The
Autobiography" (1997), "the truck couldn't get up the dirt road to our house, so
Daddy had to carry me on his back the last hundred yards through the thick
black Arkansas mud-gumbo, we called it. There was no running water, of course,
and no electricity; none of us even dreamed of miracles like that."
GUITAR FOR 10TH BIRTHDAY
In 1942, Carrie Cash gave her son his first guitar for his 10th birthday. Two
years later, Johnny's older brother Jack fell on a saw while cutting fence
posts and died eight days later. He was 14. For Johnny Cash, the incident was an
early lesson that life brings many misfortunes. Some of his best songs would
be rooted in his own recollections; "Five Feet High and Rising," for instance,
was based on an epic flood that wiped out the family farm when he was a boy.
After graduating from high school, Cash enlisted in the service, training at
Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi as a radio intercept operator. During
basic training in San Antonio, he met Vivian Liberto at a skating rink. They
kept up their correspondence while Cash was stationed in Landsberg, Germany,
where he stayed three years.
After an honorable discharge, Cash proposed to Liberto, and the two -- he a
Baptist, she a Catholic -- were married in the Catholic Church in August 1954
and moved to Memphis. They would have four daughters -- Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy
and Tara; they were divorced in 1966. Rosanne Cash grew up to have a successful
career of her own in country music, as did John Carter Cash, Cash's son with
June Carter, and one of his two stepdaughters, Carlene Carter.
While in Memphis, Cash met amateur musicians Luther Perkins and Marshall
Grant. The meeting would lead to one of the most famous and distinctive country
bands in the world. As the trio improved, Cash's employer, the Home Equipment
Company, sponsored them for a 15-minute weekly program on local station KWEM.
When they were ready to make a record, they solicited producer Sam Phillips,
whose humble Sun Records imprint would soon become world- renowned as the home to
Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and other giants of early rock
'n' roll.
They recorded an early version of "Folsom Prison Blues," which Cash had
written in Germany after seeing a film about inmates at the penitentiary, but that
wasn't quite what Phillips was looking for. Cash went home and reworked a
poem, "Hey Porter," into a spare, itchy hillbilly tune featuring the singer's
deep, authoritative baritone and a bit of rock 'n' roll gumption, articulating
what would become the group's "boom chicka boom" signature sound. This time
Phillips was intrigued, and he asked for another song that could be used as the
B-side of a single. Cash wrote "Cry, Cry, Cry," and the first record from Johnny
Cash and the Tennessee Two was ready for release.
The Tennessee Two's second single, "Folsom Prison Blues," kicked off a
remarkable run on the country charts, with the success occasionally bubbling over
into the pop mainstream.
His third single, "I Walk the Line," was the first of Cash's songs to cross
over to the pop charts, reaching No. 17 in October 1956.
In 1958 Cash signed with Columbia Records. His label debut, "The Fabulous
Johnny Cash," featured such perennials as "I Still Miss Someone" and "Don't Take
Your Guns to Town," with the latter reaching the country chart's No. 1 for six
weeks.
OUTSPOKEN IN THE 1960S
With the struggle for civil rights and opposition to war in Vietnam quietly
gaining credibility, Cash began to express his social and political ideas in
the 1960s. His outspokenness did not ingratiate him with country music disc
jockeys, who were inclined toward conservatism. In March 1964 Cash recorded a
topical song called "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," written by Peter LaFarge. The song
told the true saga of Hayes, a Pima Indian who was one of the men holding the
flag at Iwo Jima. Despite his heroism, Hayes returned home to crushing
despair; as the song related, he died tragically, drunk, in a ditch. Though "The
Ballad of Ira Hayes" was a No. 3 country single, many stations refused to play it,
deeming it too risky. Cash took out a full-page ad in Billboard denouncing
country radio for its reluctance. " 'Ballad of Ira Hayes' is strong medicine,"
he wrote. "So is Rochester -- Harlem -- Birmingham and Vietnam."
Performing at the Newport Folk Festival in July, Cash sang "The Ballad of Ira
Hayes" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," a song by the young
folksinger Bob Dylan. The two met backstage, beginning a long friendship. Cash's
affiliation with the best-known protest singer of the era added to the notion that
this was one country artist who would follow his own mind and heart, not the
accepted wisdom of his chosen field.
But Cash's independence had its pitfalls. As his schedule grew increasingly
chaotic and his anger mounted over American injustices, he slipped into a
growing dependency on prescription drugs, amphetamines and barbiturates. By his own
later admission, he was coming unglued.
Cash also was spending considerable time with June Carter, daughter of Mother
Maybelle Carter of country music's royal Carter Family. June Carter had been
part of Cash's international touring entourage since the early 1960s. In early
1967 the pair recorded "Jackson," a duet that began with the line "We got
married in a fever." Their version reached No. 2 on the country chart, inspiring
a pop hit by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood. The following year, the two
singers were wed. They remained married until Carter's death in May of this year.
By the 1970s Cash was settling in as a national icon, as much myth as man,
and continued to pour his energy into humanitarian efforts. In 1971 Cash
released the single "Man in Black." For some time he had taken to wearing all black
onstage. He once explained that the habit was meant to signify his belief that
the country had "some things that needed doing . . . I wasn't pointing at
others. I was pointing at me, too . . . I wear it, you know, because I'm
concerned, and I care."
In late 1983 Cash underwent surgery for a bleeding ulcer. The following year,
he admitted that he had been grappling once again with prescription drugs,
and he checked himself into the Betty Ford Center for treatment.
His records were no longer receiving the kind of attention they once had, but
"Highwayman," a collaboration with fellow outlaw-minded country stars Willie
Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, gave Cash his first country
No. 1 in almost a decade in 1985.
The later 1980s seemed to suggest that the end of Cash's career was near.
Columbia Records, Cash's record company of nearly three decades, decided not to
renew his contract. The singer then signed with Mercury Records, where he
remained for six largely undistinguished years.
129TH ALBUM OF CAREER
In 1994, he released "American Recordings," under the rock label American
Recordings, run by Rick Rubin, a producer who had made his name working on rap
records with the Beastie Boys and Run-D.M.C. The 129th album of his career used
a back-to-basics approach, featuring Cash's rough-hewn voice with acoustic
backing.
Cash told the press he had been meaning to make this kind of spare record for
years. "I think I'm more proud of it than anything I've ever done in my
life," he said.
"American Recordings" won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album,
beginning a string of acclaimed releases for Rubin's label. The stark, direct and
humble approach of these last records made them an anomaly in contemporary popular
music. "They can get all the synthesizers they want," Cash once said, "but
nothing will ever take the place of the human heart."
In 1997, he seemed to sense that it was time to take comprehensive stock of
his career. He updated his life story in "Cash: The Autobiography" with Patrick
Carr; and he took part in a VH-1 "Storytellers" episode with old friend
Nelson.
In May 2000, Columbia released "Love, God, Murder," a three-disc set of songs
hand-picked by the artist, addressing the three overarching themes of his
craft. "Never has there been a deeper love than my love for her," he wrote of
June in the liner notes to "Love." "At times it was painful, but we shared the
pain, so it was just half painful." When she died in May of complications from
heart surgery, a distraught Cash vowed to carry on, making plans to record
another album.
Of his lifelong attempt to understand what makes a man break the law, he
noted the long-standing tradition of art that addresses transgression. "We, the
people, put ourselves in the shoes of the singer," he wrote. "We want to feel
his pain, his loneliness."
And for the notes to the "God" disc, Cash gave as precise a summation of his
life's work as any. "At times, I'm a voice crying in the wilderness," he
wrote, "but at times I'm right on the money, and I know what I'm singing about. "
The funeral service will be private, but a public memorial is being planned
and the date will be announced later.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Some songs by Johnny Cash
"Cry, Cry, Cry," 1955
"Folsom Prison Blues," 1956
"I Walk the Line," 1956
"Get Rhythm," 1956
"Next in Line," 1957
"Home of the Blues," 1957
"Give My Love to Rose," 1957
"Ballad of a Teenage Queen," 1958
"Big River," 1958
"Guess Things Happen That Way," 1958
"The Ways of a Woman in Love," 1958
"Don't Take Your Guns to Town," 1959
"I Got Stripes," 1959
"Five Feet High and Rising," 1959
"Tennessee Flat-Top Box," 1961
"Ring of Fire," 1963
"Understand Your Man," 1964
"The Ballad of Ira Hayes," 1964
"It Ain't Me, Babe," with June Carter, 1964
"Orange Blossom Special," 1965
"Jackson," with June Carter, 1967
"Long-Legged Guitar Pickin' Man," with June Carter, 1967
"Daddy Sang Bass," 1968
"A Boy Named Sue," 1969
"If I Were a Carpenter," with June Carter Cash, 1970
"What is Truth," 1970
"Sunday Morning Coming Down," 1970
"Man in Black," 1971
"A Thing Called Love," 1972
"If I Had a Hammer," with June Carter Cash, 1972
"Ragged Old Flag," 1974
"One Piece at a Time," 1976
"There Ain't No Good Chain Gang," with Waylon Jennings, 1978
"I Will Rock and Roll With You," 1979
"(Ghost) Riders in the Sky," 1979
"Desperados Waiting for a Train," 1985
"Highwayman," with Willie Nelson, Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, 1985
"Unchained," 1997
"Solitary Man," 2000
Tim Herrick
12, 2003
CHARLOTTE, N.C., Sept. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- "Johnny Cash was not only a legend,
but was a close personal friend. Johnny was a good man who also struggled
with many challenges in life.
"Johnny was a deeply religious man. He and June came to a number of our
Crusades over a period of many years. Ruth and I took a number of personal
vacations with them at their home in Jamaica and in other places. They both were
like a brother and sister to Ruth and me. We loved them.
"We are praying that God will comfort his family and staff at this critical
time. I look forward to seeing Johnny and June in heaven one day."
SOURCE Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
Tim Herrick
By Barry A. Jeckell
NEW YORK (Billboard) - As the news spread of Johnny Cash's death Friday at
age 71, fellow artists and members of the music industry expressed deep sadness.
"I have lost one of my best friends," says Marty Stuart, Cash's former
son-in-law and one of his frequent musical collaborators. "It leaves a dark void in
my life that is blacker than any coat he ever wore. He is irreplaceable. Even
in death I have no doubt that Johnny Cash will continue to live on as an
inspiration to musicians and songwriters and all of America."
"It's a sad day in country music today," the Dixie Chicks say in a statement.
"Johnny Cash's voice was arguably one of the most recognizable and
influential in country music. It's devastating to lose two great country artists in the
same year. Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter Cash were truly a dynamic
force in shaping the music industry. Our thoughts and prayers are with their
family."
"I am deeply saddened by the loss of my children's grandfather and my very
dear friend," Rodney Crowell, ex-husband of Cash's daughter Rosanne, says. "I
loved big John with all my heart. The citizens of the world have lost one of
their most enduring guiding lights. As a musical hero to millions, a trailblazing
artist, humanitarian, spiritual leader, social commentator and most
importantly, patriarch to one of the most varied and colorful extended families
imaginable, Johnny Cash will, like Will Rogers, stand forever as a symbol of
intelligence, creativity, compassion and common sense. I'm thinking Mt. Rushmore."
"Bigger then any musical genre was Johnny Cash," Tim McGraw says. "He was an
American music icon that set the standard for how to make music on your own
terms. We will miss him." His wife, country star Faith Hill, adds, "Johnny Cash
broke all the rules and transcended musical barriers. His attitude, his style
and his music made him a true original. Who else could knock on the doors of
the pearly gates wearing black?"
"Johnny Cash had such a tremendous impact and influence on so many of us,"
says Travis Tritt. "I don't know of any other artist who had such a wide appeal
across every music genre."
"There will only ever be one Man In Black," Montgomery Gentry's Eddie
Montgomery says. "I hate to see our outlaw heroes leave because they have influenced
country music so much. I don't know that anyone can stand on the mountain like
they have."
"Unique and one of a kind," is how the Derailers' Tony Villaneuva describes
Cash. "He was a great American, and his music was the spirit of America -- all
that is good about this great country. No matter what situation we find
ourselves in playing music, we can never go wrong playing a Johnny Cash song. We're
going to miss him."
In tandem with American Recordings, Lost Highway Records released "American
IV: The Man Comes Around," Cash's latest studio album. "Johnny Cash was one of
the most amazing people to grace the Earth," label president Luke Wilson says.
"His talents as a songwriter and an artist speak for themselves."
"Johnny Cash was an international ambassador for country music and a musical
trailblazer throughout his life, possessing one of the most recognizable
names, faces and voices the world has ever known," Country Music Association
executive director Ed Benson says. "It is incomprehensible to imagine what country
music would have been like without Johnny Cash and his music."
Satellite radio provider Sirius is airing a one-hour tribute to Cash several
times today on its "The Roadhouse" channel. Remaining broadcast times are 6
p.m. and 9 p.m. ET.
On Monday (Sept. 15), cable network Trio will rebroadcast "Kindred Spirits: A
Tribute to Johnny Cash." The live performance special features Rosanne Cash,
Keb' Mo', Travis Tritt, Stuart and others performing Cash songs, as well as
interviews with Sheryl Crow, Steve Earle and Hank Williams Jr.
Reuters/Billboard
Various Cash CD, video projects due
By Barry A. Jeckell
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Purely coincidentally and unrelated to his death
Friday (Sept. 12), several Johnny Cash audio and video projects will be released in
the coming weeks.
On Tuesday, Columbia Legacy will release a 12-track collection, "Christmas
With Johnny Cash." The set features the legendary country artist performing such
traditional favorites as "I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day," "Silent Night"
and "Joy to the World."
On Sept. 23, Eagle Rock Entertainment will issue "Johnny Cash, A Concert:
Behind Prison Walls" on CD and DVD/VHS. Shot in 1976, the film features shows
Cash performing for inmates at Nashville's Tennessee State Penitentiary
accompanied by Linda Rondstadt and Roy Clark.
The latest edition in the Starbucks Coffee Company/Hear Music series
"Artist's Choice" series was assembled by Cash. The set features tracks by Eddy
Arnold, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Glenn Campbell and Mahalia Jackson, among
others, with comments on each in the liner notes.
For album opener, Hank Williams' "Lovesick Blues," Cash wrote: "We came to a
point, my voice teacher and I, where she was ready to throw up her hands
because I was not going to budge from the way I was singing. And she said, 'Okay,
sing something you like.' So I sang Hank Williams' 'Lovesick Blues.' And she
put down her books and closed them up and said, 'Don't ever let anybody try to
give you voice lessons again.' And so that was the beginning of my professional
career, I guess."
The 14-track compilation is currently available exclusively through Hear
Music and Starbucks outlets in the U.S. and Canada. It will be available beginning
Sept. 23 via traditional retailers.
Cash and producer Rick Rubin had been working on a box set that may see
release before Christmas. Tentatively titled "Unearthed," the collection will most
likely span five discs, four of which will be composed entirely of previously
unreleased material. The fifth disc would be a compilation of tracks
highlighting past four Cash studio albums, each recorded and produced by Rubin for his
American Recordings label.
The previously unreleased material will come from recording sessions for the
four "American Recordings" albums Cash released over the past decade. It's
also possible that more recently recorded fare could make the set. Rubin told
Billboard.com last month he and Cash had began working on songs after his wife,
June Carter Cash, died in May.
"He kind of made a decision," Rubin said. "He called me a couple of days
after June passed and said that he really has dedicated his life to work and wants
to be busy all the time and focused on songs. That's what he wants to do, so
that's what we're going to do and that's what we've been doing."
Cash to Be Laid to Rest Next to Wife June
By KARIN MILLER
.c The Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Many are saddened by the death of Johnny Cash, but
few are surprised - because he had lost the love of his life just months earlier.
June Carter Cash, married to the ``Man in Black'' for 35 years, died in May
at 73. Johnny Cash, who passed away Friday from complications due to diabetes,
will be laid to rest next to her after a private service Monday near their
home north of Nashville.
``It was a shock, but it wasn't a shock. I'd actually been looking for him to
die before her,'' said Bobby Beard, a cook at B.B. King's restaurant. ``She
was an amazing lady and helped pull him out of his drug addiction. I knew when
June died, he wouldn't last long.''
In his 1997 autobiography, Johnny Cash described how his wife stuck with him
through his years of amphetamine abuse.
``June said she knew me - knew the kernel of me, deep inside, beneath the
drugs and deceit and despair and anger and selfishness, and knew my loneliness,''
he wrote.
``If she found my pills, she flushed them down the toilet. And find them she
did; she searched for them, relentlessly.''
Cash, who suffered in recent years from autonomic neuropathy, a disease of
the nervous system that made him susceptible to pneumonia, had been in and out
of the hospital several times. During one such hospitalization, June Carter
Cash asked fans to pray for his recovery; before her death from complications
after heart surgery, Johnny Cash did the same.
The two got to know one another when she joined his road show in 1962. She
and Merle Kilgore co-wrote Johnny Cash's 1963 hit ``Ring of Fire,'' which was
about her falling in love with him.
After he divorced first wife Vivian, he proposed to June on stage and they
married one month later in 1968.
Friends and family called them soul mates.
Longtime friend Kris Kristofferson has said they ``have been partners in life
for as long as I've known them - always in love, and always there for each
other.''
After her death, Cash returned to the recording studio with a vengeance and
vowed to ``outlive all my children. I'm not going anywhere.''
But at one of his last public appearances this summer, at the Carter Family
Fold in Maces Springs, Va., he told the crowd that the pain of being on stage
without June ``is so severe, there is no way of describing it.''
Carter Family Fold executive Rita Forrester told the Kingsport Times-News,
``Oh, can you imagine the reunion that is going on right now in heaven with John
and June. He was heartbroken when she left, but now they're together again.''
Tim Herrick
By Kurt Loder
(Johnny Cash passed away on Sept. 12, 2003, due to complications from
diabetes. The following article was written in August after Cash granted MTV News'
Kurt Loder an interview in his Tennessee home.)
HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. -- Johnny Cash, a prototype of the hard-living,
finger-flipping rock and roll hell-raiser, is 71 years old now, and still a resident
in the grand, rambling old house he bought more than 30 years ago on the banks
of Old Hickory Lake, half an hour outside of Nashville.
Here, he's surrounded by the memories of a long life and the artifacts of a
lustrous career. There are framed singles -- his earliest hits, some on old 78
rpm discs; a room filled with more than 70 guitars, many of them rare (he's
been a life-long collector); and personal letters of admiration from the last
five U.S. presidents. Johnny Cash has a lot to look back on.
He was present at the creation of white rock and roll, which is to say
rockabilly. Signed to the pivotal Sun Records label in Memphis in 1955, he became
part of a pioneering rockabilly roster that included Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison,
Jerry Lee Lewis and, briefly, the original rockabilly, Elvis Presley.
Rockabillies were, as the name implies, rhythm-and-blues-addled Southern
white boys prone to speaking in bop-cat cadences, sculpting their hair into oily
pompadours and twitching around in taste-defying threads tailored in
eye-catching pink-and-black color schemes. Grown-ups were naturally not thrilled about
this, but a nation of bored 1950s youth got real interested right away.
Rockabilly was loud, clattersome, revved-up music, and Johnny Cash was right
in the thick of it. But he was never completely a part of it. His stark,
almost muttering baritone was a little too dignified for the form, his simple
bass-and-guitar backup was a little too austere to raise a real ruckus, and his
country inclinations (he grew up on an Arkansas cotton farm, and started out
fronting a country trio) were something he never cared to obscure.
He was also a little dark, right from the beginning. On his second Sun
single, "Folsom Prison Blues," released in 1956, he famously sang: "I shot a man in
Reno, just to watch him die." This was not especially transgressive in itself
-- both rock and country music are rich in songs of mayhem. But death has
remained an unusually pervasive theme throughout Cash's career. Love, God, Murder
-- a three-disc compilation he released in 2000 -- devotes one whole CD to
songs of homicide, including "Don't Take Your Guns to Town," "The Long Black
Veil" and, of course, "Delia's Gone" -- the video for which shows Cash shoveling
dirt onto the just-dug grave of his recently deceased beloved, who'll be
troubling him no more.
Cash may have set up shop as "the man in black" in order to distinguish
himself from the gaudier denizens of the pop-music world, but the image resonates
on a deeper level in his music.
All of which is kind of ... gangsta, in a way. Johnny Cash has drawn on a
deep well of murder and mortality in American music, and everybody pretty much
agrees the man's a master, a modern icon. Today's rappers, however -- who deal
with the same subjects in a, shall we say, more immediate way -- get nothing
but flack. Cash has gotten some flack, too, over the years, but he's paid it no
mind. And he has some advice for under-fire rappers.
"Ignore it," Cash says. "Do what you do. You can't let people delegate to you
what you should do when it's coming from way in here [taps heart]. I wouldn't
let anybody influence me into thinking I was doing the wrong thing by singing
about death, hell and drugs. 'Cause I've always done that. And I always will."
Johnny Cash is a country man, and he's been a fixture on the country charts
for much of his nearly 50-year career. But the hits he had right out of the box
-- starting with "Cry, Cry, Cry" in 1955 and continuing with "Folsom Prison
Blues," "I Walk the Line," "Ballad of a Teenage Queen," "There You Go," "Home
of the Blues" and "Guess Things Happen That Way" -- also remain undeniable
emblems of the dawning rock 'n' roll era. (His trademark singles from this period
are widely available and conveniently assembled on a Rhino Records compilation
called Johnny Cash: The Sun Years.)
Unlike today, when big rock acts tend to tour in coordination with the
release of albums that can take as long as a year to cobble together, '50s rock
stars were expected to stay out on the road pretty much permanently, in order to
milk what was presumed to be, and usually was, their very transient moment.
So Cash and his Sun stablemates -- Perkins, Orbison, the truly unhinged Jerry
Lee -- were sent out by rattletrap bus on package tours that took them all
over the country and up into Canada, too: an endless series of one-nighters
fueled by liquor and ambition and whatever else was at hand.
"We were young and wild and crazy," Cash says today. "As crazy as you can
get. At the time we were doin' these tours, we discovered amphetamines. Or I did,
anyway."
Cash left Sun to sign with Columbia Records in 1958, and he continued having
hits: "Don't Take Your Guns to Town," "I Got Stripes," "Five Feet High and
Rising." But he was also sinking into a morass of drugs and alcohol, and he
stayed sunk for nearly a decade.
He would occasionally bobble up for air, though. In 1963, he scored a Top 20
pop hit with "Ring of Fire," a song co-written by June Carter, of the fabled
country-music clan, the Carter Family. (The song has since been covered by
everyone from Blondie to Grace Jones to Social Distortion.)
Carter and Cash started working together and were attracted to one another
early on. Unfortunately, each was married to someone else at the time.
So Cash continued his downward spiral. Raised as a devout Christian, he'd
originally hoped to record gospel songs; but now he was more often than not angry
and violent and unreliable. He trashed the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, a
venerable country showcase, when told he couldn't perform there. He was arrested
in Texas for attempting to smuggle amphetamines across the Mexican border in
his guitar case. Eventually, inevitably, he overdosed.
And yet, he says he has a lot to look forward to right now. The video for his
autumnal version of the Nine Inch Nails song "Hurt" is nominated for six MTV
Video Music Awards, and despite his infirmities, he dearly hopes to be on hand
to see what it wins. ["Hurt" won an MTV Video Music Award for
cinematography.] Then, right afterward, he's scheduled to fly out to Los Angeles to begin
work on American V, the fifth album of his singular 10-year collaboration with
the eclectic producer Rick Rubin.
He doesn't have to do any of this, of course. There's nothing left to prove.
He keeps going, he says -- keeps making music -- because it's one of the last
things his late wife insisted that he do.
"She told me in the hospital, 'Don't worry about me ... go to work.' Three
days after the funeral -- everybody said, 'You're crazy,' but three days after
the funeral, I was in the studio. And I stayed in the studio for two weeks."
Still at it, even though he's already a presiding eminence of American
popular music: not exactly rock, not completely country, just ... Johnny Cash. He
knows his own time will be up sooner rather than later, but he seems completely
at peace.
"Oh, I expect my life to end pretty soon," he says. "You know, I'm 71 years
old. I have great faith, though. I have unshakeable faith."
And despite all the ups and way-downs of his long life, Johnny Cash says he
has no regrets.
"I used to," he says, "But I forgave myself. When God forgave me, I figured
I'd better do it too."
Dave Mason
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Johnny Cash in my
life and on my musical tastes. I'm 27 now, and 24 years ago he was
the only musician I knew by name. My dad used to play "Ghost Riders
in the Sky" off a cassette called Silver. Once I was old enough to
work a cassette player myself, I knew all the songs on that album and
another, The Last Gunfighter Ballad, by heart. When I was 17 my
parents bought me the Columbia boxed set for Christmas. I listened to
Johnny everyday for months. And then every week for, well, a very
LONG time. Then when I was 18 American Recordings came out, and I was
so amazed. A year later I got to see him Lousivlle Kentucky. Amazed
again. And he kept right on going 'til he couldn't anymore.
I look at my favorites: Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Hank Williams, Merle,
Willie, Gram Parsons, Sinatra, Elvis Costello, on and on... and I see
a common thread that I trace back to the music I first fell in love
with, the music that made me love music. They are all, in some way,
outsiders, rebels, people who did things their way. People who, for
the most part, made their music as honest to themselves as they could,
and I think it was that honesty in Johnny's music that drew me in.
To me he's like a grandfather I never had, and I'll miss him as much.
On The Last Gunfighter Ballad there's a song he and June sing and it
goes like this:
"I'll be waiting on the far side banks of Jordan / I'll be sitting
drawing pictures in the sand / And when I see you coming I will rise
up with a shout / And come running through the shallow waters reaching
for your hand."
Well, now it's true and this world will miss them both.
Tim Herrick
Iconic Man in Black was seventy-one
1932-2003
Johnny Cash, whose five-decade career defined and refined American music,
died early this morning of complications from diabetes; he was seventy-one.
Earlier this week, Cash had been released from a Nashville hospital after a
two-week stay for pancreatitis. The singer had been in ill health for the past
six years. He was initially diagnosed with Shy-Drager Syndrome, a type of
Parkinson's Disease, but subsequent diagnosis found him to have autonomic
neuropathy, which left him susceptible to bronchitis and pneumonia.
Cash handled his illness with the legendary resilience that had made him a
larger than life character throughout his career. Despite the multiple visits to
the hospital, he remained defiantly prolific, recording dozens of songs over
the past few years, fifteen of which ended up on his most recent album,
American IV: The Man Comes Around, and some of which might be turned into a
posthumous fifth American Recordings album.
The series of recordings Cash made with producer Rick Rubin created the most
unlikely of country music comebacks, as the genre often leaves its legends out
in the cold when their expiration date is perceived to have passed. In 1993,
Rubin contacted the label-less Cash, hoping to record him for his American
label. When Cash asked Rubin what sort of album he wanted to make, the producer
told him he just wanted to record an essence-of-Johnny Cash album. Cash likened
the experience to his very first recording sessions with legendary producer
and Sun Records founder Sam Phillips.
After introducing himself to Phillips in 1955, Cash played an original, "Hey
Porter," which piqued the producer's curiosity. Cash said that Phillips sent
him home to come up with a sad song. The aspiring songwriter took Phillips'
direction literally and inked "Cry, Cry, Cry," a triple weeper, which was
recorded in May and issued with "Porter." Backed by the Tennessee Two (guitarist
Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant), Cash was forging his own corner of
rockabilly that utilized his earthy baritone and the trio's staccato
boom-chaka-boom rhythm. A second session a month later yielded "Folsom Prison Blues,"
which made its way to the country charts, and a legend was born.
The influence of Cash's Arkansas upbringing can't be underestimated in his
music and career. Born J.R. Cash in Cleveland County on February 26, 1932, Cash
eventually took on the name John, which stuck through childhood (Phillips, the
masterful marketer, is oft credited with extending it to Johnny). When Cash
was still a tot, his father took advantage of an FDR program that allowed him
to buy several acres of land in Dyess, Arkansas, near the Mississippi River, in
the northeast part of the state. The locale provided the four elements that
perhaps most defined Cash's early career: God, the mighty Mississippi, cotton
fields and the radio broadcasts of the Grand Ole Opry, in no specific order.
Cash graduated from Dyess High School in 1950 before taking a string of
short-term jobs, including stints at an auto factory in Detroit, a run with the Air
Force in Germany (where he first began to perform music) and selling vacuum
cleaners in Memphis. His brother introduced him to a pair of mechanics who
played a bit, Perkins and Grant, and the three began to take the odd gig, often
dressed in black. The look was striking and, more importantly, practical, as
they couldn't afford a more elaborate get-up.
Upon their intersection with Phillips and Sun, Johnny Cash and the Tennessee
Two began to put their stamp onto Cash's original songs pulled from the first
two decades of his life, from the Lord (Cash oft recorded the traditional
hymns from his youth like "Where You There (When They Crucified My Lord)," to the
nearby Mississippi ("Big River," "Three Feet High and Rising") to the family
spread ("Pickin' Time") to his Ol' Opry favorites ("Wreck of the Old '97").
Cash also defined the Man in Black persona during this time, a combination of
outlaw mystique, spiritual humbleness and iconic individualism. Cash's aura
was spoken for in proudly defiant songs like "I Walk the Line" (his first hit
on the pop charts, reaching Number Seventeen in 1956) as well as the stark
"Folsom Prison Blues," which featured the line that became a murderous mantra, "I
shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die." And despite a larger-than-life
voice and build, he played everyman with his basic introduction, "Hello, I'm
Johnny Cash," his outspoken support of Native Americans and Vietnam vets, and his
unquestionable patriotism.
After "I Walk the Line," he charted three more pop hits for Sun in 1958 --
"Ballad of a Teenage Queen" (Number Fourteen), "Guess Things Happen That Way"
(Number Eleven) and "The Ways of a Woman in Love" (Number Twenty-four) -- before
darting for a major label, Columbia, where he would record into the Eighties.
Cash's run for the label from the late Fifties to the early Seventies was
prolific and profitable, with a string of pop hits, including "Don't Take Your
Guns to Town," a live version of "Folsom Prison Blues," "A Boy Named Sue" and
"Ring of Fire." The last two tell much of Cash's story during the era. "Ring of
Fire" was co-written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore. Carter, the daughter of
country music matriarch Maybelle Carter, had been touring with Cash with the
legendary Carter Family when she and the singer, both married at the time,
fell for each other. According to lore, Cash had met Carter years before and
promised that one day he'd marry her. Able to tap into the song's verisimilitude
as ably as its writer, Cash scored a Number Seventeen hit with "Ring of Fire"
in 1963 . . . five years before they actually married. Carter, who began to
perform and record regularly with her husband as June Carter Cash, is also
largely credited with saving his life, flushing pills during his addiction-riddled
years in the Sixties and Seventies. "In his wilder days, you couldn't settle
him down," fellow wild child Waylon Jennings said just before his death in 2002.
"I remember once he wanted to play Jimmie Rodgers in a movie. We used to live
together, and he'd practice in front of me, acting like Jimmie Rodgers.
Neither of us had any idea what Jimmie Rodgers acted like."
As for "A Boy Named Sue," Cash never quit writing his own material, but by
the mid-Sixties, he became a songwriters' champion, channeling songs by writers
he admired through his unmistakable voice. Among them were "Sue"'s writer,
illustrator/songwriter/humorist Shel Silverstein and Kris Kristofferson, who
legend has it landed a helicopter in Cash's yard in an attempt to pitch him songs.
Cash scored a minor pop hit (and a country chart topper) in 1970 with
Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down." He was also a friend and champion of
Bob Dylan, bringing the singer-songwriter to the Nashville set. He sang on
Dylan's Nashville Skyline, and hosted the him on the debut episode of his own
primetime television revue. The hunter/gatherer aspect of Cash's creativity would
carry on through the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties. He inhabited Bruce
Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman" in 1983, a practice of making others' songs his
own that would serve him well a decade later.
Cash and Columbia's relationship came to an end in the Eighties, and things
were quiet until Rubin contacted him. For 1994's American Recordings Cash
wrapped his voice around songs by sources as unlikely as Glen Danzig ("Thirteen")
and others that made more cosmic sense like Tom Waits ("Down There By the
Train"), Leonard Cohen ("Bird on a Wire") and Nick Lowe ("The Beast in Me"). The
album was packaged in stark black and white and instantly introduced Cash to a
group of listeners that had grown up in the Eighties, removed from his legacy.
A second American album, Unchained, was issued two years later with Cash
backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. In addition to classic country cuts like
"Sea of Heartbreak," "I Never Picked Cotton" (more cotton, forty years after
leaving Dyess) and "I've Been Everywhere," Cash recorded Beck's "Rowboat" and
Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage."
It was the perfect marriage. Cash sounded reinvigorated singing the newer
material (as well as contributing the occasional original like the staggeringly
layered "When the Man Comes Around" this year) and potential contributors were
tripping over themselves to have their songs recorded. "When Cash is looking
for songs, word gets out on the writing grapevine," Joe Strummer said prior to
his death last December. "There's scurrying, though you kind of just kind of
send it in. You don't really get to go, 'Look Mr. Cash!'"
Recalls Nick Cave, who had his "The Mercy Seat" covered on American III:
Solitary Man three years ago: "Rick Rubin called up and said, 'You wanna come down
and sing with Johnny Cash?' Um, yeah, OK . . . I'll try to make the time,
y'know. I was very flattered when he sang my song, and singing with him was
amazing. There's an encyclopedia of all that stuff in his head."
The most recent American record has sold better than its two predecessors,
due in part to a striking video for Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt,"
which spliced recent footage of the older Cash with cracked and dusty photos from
his archives. The video was nominated for five MTV Video Music Awards last
month, and was a sentimental (and artist) favorite, though it only won one award.
More than fifty songs have been issued on Cash's four American records. More
than 100 unreleased, including a song Strummer wrote for him, "The Road to
Rock & Roll" ("He said it confused him," Strummer said), many of which will be
included on a multi-disc box set later this year.
Cash and Rubin had planned to cut fifty songs down to fifteen for American V,
but the year had been tough for Cash. In addition to multiple
hospitalizations, in May he lost his soul mate June. According to daughter Kathy, Cash was
asked if he'd like to select a charity to have donations made in lieu of
flowers. "No," he said. "We give to charities all the time. June loved flowers. I
want her to have lots of flowers."
Cash was a member of both the Country Music and the Rock and Roll Halls of
Fame. His original compositions have been covered countless times, recently on a
pair of tribute albums. And his interpretations of others' songs have changed
the way they are heard. And his music and attitude have influenced five
decades of artists, without lines drawn for genre. "He's touched the real ones,"
said Cash's former guitarist and former son-in-law Marty Stuart, "the artists
who are as timeless as he is. Those who have gotten in there and made the big
book."
ANDREW DANSBY